Broken Things
by orbythesea
Summary: "In her dreams, there are only broken pieces." Originally posted sometime last year. Alicia/Will season 3.


They don't talk about it. Mrs. Florrick would have insisted on a conversation after that first hotel room, but Mrs. Florrick has left the building. For the first time in her life Alicia is selfish, taking what she wants without giving herself in return. And so she doesn't tell Will about the cracks running through her, doesn't tell him who put them there. She shows him, instead, if he's smart enough to look. She shows him when she doesn't suppress her moans as his tongue works between her legs, when she runs her nails down his back, when she silences his words with brutal, bruising kisses.

Still, there is so much that she doesn't show him, so much that she tries to hide from herself. She tells herself that it's okay, that she has earned this. In her dreams, there are only broken pieces. One night, she dreams about the Grand Canyon, that great wound carved deep into the earth, and she wakes up gasping for breath, wondering what it would feel like to fall. With shaking hands, she pours herself a glass of wine and drinks alone in the dark of her kitchen, trying to calm herself, to silence her thoughts.

Her mind wanders back through the years, moving boxes and family vacations, school trips and dirty diapers. She remembers Grace, barely more than a baby, crying for Humpty Dumpty's fate. Zach had taken it upon himself to comfort his sister, stroking her hair and insisting that Humpty wasn't real, that none of her fears were real.

She thinks of skinned knees and bee stings and seven-year-old Zach's broken arm. He looked so much like Peter in the emergency room, trying so hard to be strong, to be brave. On the way home, she sat in the backseat with him, pulling him as close as their seat belts would allow. Hazy from pain relievers, he had told her that he was okay as he admired the bright blue cast on his arm.

At lunch the next day, Will peels a navy dress from her shoulders and delights in each inch of skin that he exposes. She thinks about Christmas mornings, bikes and video games, thinks about birthday parties at ice skating rinks and arcades, about Tonka trucks and dollhouses and Peter slipping out the door after cake and presents. She pulls Will up for a kiss and then she doesn't think of anything at all.

That night, she dreams about her children, about Becca and abortions and Zach helping with the dishes. She dreams about Grace, incongruous in a tutu and soccer jersey, kicking a ball with her feet all bound up in silk and pink ribbons. Her dreams turn darker, then, to unshed tears and sympathetic looks, to fears and uncertainty. Then there is Zach, still a little boy but almost - almost- a man. "It's not okay, Mom," he shouts. "I'm not okay." She wakes with a start, orients herself, gets dressed and starts her day.

Eli calls as she's cursing the morning traffic. She tells him she's on her way before she says hello, and she can almost see his scowl through the phone's display. A few months ago, she would have followed up with an apology for the delivery truck blocking her lane, but she's decided to stop blaming herself for anything at all. Twenty minutes later, she slips into the conference room where the meeting has started without her and she hears a mumbled "Saint Alicia" from the far end of the table. Eli narrows his eyes, almost imperceptibly, and she wonders if he's disappointed that_she_ showed up instead.

She narrows her eyes right back, and Eli's eyes dart to the speaker. It occurs to her that maybe the narrowed eyes were a response to the epithet, that maybe they weren't meant for her at all. She can never tell with Eli, is never sure when she's expected to make a substantive contribution or when a cardboard cutout would suffice.

She sleeps a few nights without the distraction of dreams, organizes her thoughts, her cases, and lets herself enjoy the game. She plays mom, plays mentor, plays lawyer, then suddenly Grace is missing and she's not playing anything anymore. She doesn't say a word, but Peter sees all of her broken places. He holds her tight, strong and brave as he whispers reassurance, all confidence and lies.

Grace walks through the door and for a moment, for one brief, split-second-of-a-moment, the years and the hurt and the lies melt away. There is love and relief and _family_. The elevator dings open and the air is filled with something familiar and comforting but just so damn _intrusive_ in this moment, so damn incongruous. Then the door chimes closed and Will's cologne fades away, taking with it her belief in the ability to unbreak anything along with it. Still, there was a moment.

He knows it's coming, he _must_ know. She thinks it's a first step towards sealing some of the cracks. She believes it, she _needs_ to believe it, but blinking back tears as she walks back to her office, there's not a person around who can't see through her now.

"You can't unscramble an omelet," Owen insists a few nights later, only they've both had too much to drink so it takes him several tries to get the words out. It makes her want to smile, makes her want to cry, makes her want to throw her arms around her little brother and reminisce about all the times they woke up early on Sunday mornings to make their parents breakfast in bed. She takes a sip of her drink and shakes her head, makes sure that none of it is visible on her face. It was a million years ago and the memory is tainted, anyway. They both remember the morning when they carried two trays up the stairs only to find their mother alone. Alicia Cavanaugh's gone too, then. Or scrambled. Maybe Grace was right, maybe she does drink too much.

In her dreams, the ground splits beneath her feet, dry and desert, like the surface of an egg. She wants to stop, wants to stand rooted to the spot, any spot, but the earth keeps splitting open so she runs, instead. She wakes more tired than she was when she tumbled out of the taxi and into bed, jeans still clinging to her hips. Her mouth is dry and fuzzy, and her stomach lurches when she reaches to silence the alarm. She swallows bile and chases it with a couple of ibuprofen before forcing herself into the shower. The tile is smooth and cool against her back and she closes her eyes against the assault of the water.

At first, she can't remember the last time she was this hungover, and then suddenly she can. Suddenly Peter's just spent his first night in prison and she can hear Grace and Zach squabbling down the hall and _Morning Edition_ blaring too loudly from the clock radio. She sees herself hurl the radio across the room and it hits the doorframe with a satisfying _bang_. The kids get quiet, then they're standing in her doorway, exchanging worried looks. "It's okay, Mom," Zach says, finally. "It's going to be okay."

She steps out of the shower, dries her hair, paints her face, and dresses slowly in front of the mirror, watching herself as if her reflection can tell her who to be now. With a few hook-and-eye closures and a bit of lace, she can hide all evidence that her breasts have served their evolutionary purpose. Silk and spandex make her legs smooth and her belly flat. She is fascinated by the way buttons can make holes disappear, how she can close a gap with a simple tug of a zipper. She bares her teeth at her reflection, feels strong, safe, wonders if Donna Karen knows that she's designing armor.

Still, she doesn't recognize the woman in the mirror. In the bathroom, she reaches for her curling iron, wraps wide strips of hair around it, over and over again until she's undone the hours in the salon, waiting for expensive straighteners to work their magic. She almost looks like she did almost two decades ago, back before Zach learned that he could pull a curl straight and it would bounce back like a spring, before Jackie let it slip that she looked too Jewish to be Peter's wife. The curls frame her face in an unruly mess and she could never walk into a court room looking like this. She tugs a curl straight and is disappointed by how long it takes to bounce back into shape.

She frowns at her reflection, a strange amalgam of her many selves. The face looking back at her is something new. Someone new. Once perfected, Alicia Florrick never had curls like this and Alicia Cavanaugh preferred hoodies and Converse sneakers to designer labels and heels. Neither of them would ever paint their lips such a deep burgundy. One would have worried that it would attract attention, the other that it would attract the wrong_kind_ of attention.

Whoever she is now, she's a woman who has learned that exquisite tailoring and dark lipstick make her look less dowdy on camera. She should thank Peter for that, someday. She almost laughs at the thought when she hears her phone ringing, bringing her moment of self-indulgence to an end. When Diane asks where she is, she lies, inventing a traffic jam as she stabs the elevator call button.

All day, Will's gaze follows her through the office, and he finds her as she's packing up for the night. "You okay?" he asks, softly. His hands are in his pockets, and his eyes are soft and worried.

She nods, but the words get stuck in her throat, can't tell him yes, she's fine, everything's fine. "Let me get back to you on that?" she says, finally.

"I- " He stops, shakes his head, looks down at his feet then back up at her. "I'm always here, if you want to talk," he murmurs.

She thanks him, tucks a curl behind her ear, and thanks him again. "I'm fine," she adds. "Really."

Neither of them believe it, but he lets it go, lets her go, and she's not sure whether she's relieved or devastated.

"I like your hair," he whispers. "Like this, I mean. I always did, I- I'd forgotten."

She nods. "I'm figuring it out," she says. "It's just- " She takes a deep breath. "I don't know what there is left anymore."

"I don't understand." He's so earnest, so kind, and it would be so easy to let him try to put her back together again. It would be easier still to take a few steps towards him, close enough that he would feel her breath against his skin, to let him touch her, to revel in being broken.

She shakes her head. "I have to get home," she whispers. "I've got my kids."

At home, there is leftover Chinese and some awful made-for-TV movie but her kids let her wrap her arms around them and hold them close.

"We're okay, right?" she asks during a commercial, and she barely realizes that she's spoken aloud until they answer in the affirmative.

Later, much later, after she's turned out the light but before she's managed to fall asleep she spots Zach leaning in her doorway.

"Hey Mom?" he says, softly. "It's okay if you're not, you know. Okay." He doesn't wait for an answer, probably thinks that she's already sleeping.

She hugs her pillow to her chest and smiles. For the first time in a long time, she thinks that she might feel whole again. Someday.


End file.
